


True Love's Kiss

by casesandcapitals



Series: Disney Princess AU [1]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, Magic, Sleeping Beauty - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2672465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casesandcapitals/pseuds/casesandcapitals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Frank was cursed by an evil witch at his Christening, that he would prick his finger upon the needle of a spinning wheel on his sixteenth birthday and fall into an enchanted sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Love's Kiss

Everyone knew the story of the cursed prince.  
Gerard's mother told him the story sometimes before bed, because even if it occasionally gave him nightmares, he always thought it was terribly exciting. His mother knew the story better than most because she had been at the Christening serving pastries when the evil witch strode into the great hall.  
The king had been waging war against the fair folk for years, trying to bring their land under his rule, but every time his army crossed the border they were repelled. Just before the prince was born, the king had led his troops into the fair land and had struck down the witch's lover in the midst of battle.  
The witch, enraged, vowed to kill the king. But when the prince was born, she realized how to wound the king as he had wounded her.  
She knocked the guards away as they rushed to capture her, then swept up to the baby's cradle as all the guests watched in horror. She cursed the child so that he would prick his finger upon a the needle of a spinning wheel as the sun set on his sixteenth birthday, causing him to fall into an enchanted slumber from which he could never wake- unless he was kissed by his true love.  
As the curse settled over the crying babe, the king leapt up and drew his sword. The witch only laughed, for she thought nothing could kill her. She didn't know, of course, that she had been betrayed.  
The fair folk wanted the battles to stop and were willing to let the king rule over them, but they knew the witch would never allow it. A plan was hatched by the fairies and the crow that the witch had pressed into service. They would give the king a weapon that could kill the witch, and he would leave them to their own devices, ruling their land but not controlling them. The crow, tired of his service to the witch, delivered an enchanted iron sword to the king on the day that the prince was born.  
And thus, at the christening, the king ran the witch through, killing her and solidifying his power.  
The people cheered, but the celebrating was short lived for soon they realized, upon examining the prince, that the curse still lay upon him. A black flame had been seared into the skin over his heart, marking his fate.

 

At six years old, Gerard left the kitchen and became the prince's personal servant. At barely five years of age, the prince didn't need much, so Gerard spent the first year learning from an elderly servant who would be retiring to the country soon after.

On the prince's seventh birthday, a grand party was held. Presents were heaped upon the child from humans and fair folk alike and princesses from every kingdom came to meet him. Everyone knew that the prince needed to find his true love and all the other kings hoped it would be one of their daughters who would marry into the wealthiest family in the land.

That night, prince Frank jumped onto his feather stuffed mattress and sighed.  
"It was a wonderful party, don't you think?" he asked, staring up at the carved, gold painted ceiling.  
"It was," Gerard answered, pulling Frank's shoes off and crossing the room to set them in a cupboard. "The gift from the king of Endri was especially generous."  
The prince propped himself up on his elbows and tilted his head to the side. "What was it again?"  
Gerard, who was almost ten now, just smiled. "He gave his youngest son as your personal bodyguard."  
"Oh! That's right. The boy with all that hair."  
"Raymond Toro," Gerard nodded. "He's still in training, but it's said that he's the best swordsman of his age in half the kingdoms."  
"He didn't look like much," Frank shrugged. He sat up so Gerard could unbutton his fine jacket.  
"Well, he's only eleven. He'll start training with your father's knights tomorrow and soon he'll be the best swordsman in this kingdom as well. And sworn to protect you."  
"That _is_ a fine gift," Frank agreed. He undid the laces to his undershirt and handed it to Gerard, who dropped it in a basket of laundry.  
"Did you like any of the princesses you met?" Gerard wondered.  
Frank crossed his legs under him and made a face.  
"The lady Rihanna was nice enough, but not very pretty I think."  
Gerard chuckled. "Not very pretty, but rather smart I've heard. And did you notice her hands?"  
Frank leaned forward and grinned. "The callouses on the inside of her thumb? I wonder if her father knows she practices the sword or if one of their knights is teaching her in secret."  
Gerard piled a few other pieces of dirty clothes in the basket and laughed with the prince. "Quite the scandal."  
"I don't know if I would want a wife that was better than I at fighting," Frank grimaced.  
"You're not a bad swordsman," Gerard assured him.  
The young prince pouted. "You're _supposed_ to say I'm the best swordsman ever."  
Gerard bowed low and said in mock formality, "my prince, you are superior in every way."  
Frank burst out laughing and Gerard stood, grinning.  
"Do you think we'll have time to ride tomorrow?" Frank asked after a moment.  
"I think so," Gerard answered. He walked slowly around the room, extinguishing candles. "You have sword practice in the morning, and tutoring as well. Maybe in the afternoon."  
"It's going to be winter soon and then Father won't let me ride at all," Frank pouted.  
The prince had taken ill the past three winters in a row and was now under a watchful eye from his autumn birthday until late spring.  
Gerard made a face, remember how awful it was to watch his prince suffer. "Would you like an extra blanket tonight? Or I could build the fire up a bit?"  
"Just a blanket, perhaps," Frank smiled.  
"I'll be right back," Gerard nodded.  
He took the basket of laundry and set it at the top of the staircase so he could bring it down to the wash before he turned in for the night. He found an empty guest room and took a thick blanket from the bed, folding it and carrying it back to the prince's rooms.  
The seven year old prince was fast asleep by the time Gerard returned. Gerard tucked him under the covers and laid the extra blanket out on top. He pinched out the last candle and quietly left the room, grabbing the laundry on his way down to the servant's quarters.

 

In the summer of the prince's eleventh year, princesses from kingdoms near and far started arriving, one or two at a time, to spend a few months in residence at the castle.  
Frank was encouraged to spend time with the girls, going to plays and sitting together at feasts while their matrons chaperoned. Gerard stood behind Frank's right shoulder the whole time, trying not to laugh when a princess said something particularly vapid or when Frank turned around to make a face at him.  
"It's awful," Frank complained one afternoon. He was sitting on the edge of his favorite horse's stall, balancing on the thin wall. "All they talk about is embroidery and painting, or they just gossip about the other people in the room."  
Gerard looked up from grooming the prince's horse. "They don't get to do things like archery or hunting, you know. They talk about what they were taught to talk about."  
"It's insufferable," Frank whined. "I don't want a queen who speaks ill of others behind their backs."  
"Like how you're doing right now?" Gerard teased.  
Frank grinned then whistled, causing the horse to turn toward him and for Gerard to step back into a pile of muck. Frank laughed and Gerard glared at him, scraping his boot on the side of the stall.  
"If you fall off that wall and into this muck, you're going to spend the afternoon helping me clean your jacket," Gerard warned.  
"Ha!" Frank laughed. "You can't make me."  
Toro, who was standing outside the stalls with one hand on the pommel of his sword and his eyes on the courtyard, chuckled.  
"Everyone's against me today!" Gerard said.  
"I'll make it up to you," Frank smiled, hopping off the wall and onto a patch of straw covered dirt. "We can go fishing at that pond you like, by the big willow tree."  
Gerard flushed and got back to brushing out the horse's mane. "Yes, alright. You're forgiven."  
Frank beamed and strode out into the courtyard. Toro followed after him, but not before sending Gerard a wink. Gerard rolled his eyes and began saddling up Frank's horse for the ride.

 

By the time Frank turned fourteen, the king was getting desperate. Even the daughters of minor lords were being brought in and introduced to the prince in an attempt to catch his eye.  
"It's a lot of pressure, you know?" Frank complained.  
Gerard nodded. They were sitting on a stone bench in the king's garden, watching fat bees swarming around.  
"Pretty soon he'll have me meeting every peasant girl in every village.... How am I supposed to fall in love when I know that I'm _supposed_ to fall in love?"  
"I don't know," Gerard mumbled. "What if your father just burned all the spinning wheels in the kingdom? You can't prick your finger if there are no needles."  
"That's his last resort, I think," Frank sighed, reaching out to pick a flower. "He's had the treasurer saving for years to repay the weavers guild if it comes to that."  
"What about asking the fair folk to try and remove the curse?"  
"They tried when I was a baby," Frank said, shaking his head. "They tried everything."  
"It's not fair!" Gerard said angrily. "You didn't even do anything!"  
Frank looked even more upset than before. "My father said it's his fault for grasping at what he didn't deserve. He said a good king betters the lives of his people and doesn't start wars. Even though the fair folk have prospered under his rule, he says he never should have gone to war in the first place."  
"He told you that?" Gerard whispered.  
Frank nodded, twirling the flower between his thumb and finger. "He said he wants me to be a better king than he ever was."  
"You will be," Gerard stated, no doubt in his voice.  
Frank looked up and gave him a weak smile. "I'll have to get past my sixteenth birthday first."

As autumn approached in Frank's fifteenth year, the prince began having nightmares. The healers tried sleeping tonics and the fair folk tried spells, but he just couldn't get a restful night's sleep. He began asking Gerard to stay with him through the long nights.  
"I'm scared," he whispered on one of those nights. "I'm scared that it's going to happen no matter what we do."  
The smell of smoke from the giant bonfire still lingered in their hair as they huddled near the hearth. Every spinning wheel in the kingdom had been broken and thrown into the fire that very afternoon. Frank and Gerard had watched from a tower, as Frank was scared to get too close to the spinning wheels.  
"I'll stay with you every moment," Gerard promised. "When your birthday comes, I won't let you out of my sight for a moment."  
"What if the witch isn't really dead?" Frank wondered.  
"She is. They burned her in the same spot that they burned the spinning wheels today."  
"But she was a witch, maybe she survived it somehow." Frank's right hand settled over his heart, above the black flame that still scarred his skin, hidden under layers of nightclothes.  
"She'll have to get through Toro and me before she can get to you," Gerard said, wishing he could pull Frank's hand away from his heart but afraid of being too familiar with him.  
Frank looked up at Gerard, a fierce gleam in his eyes.  
"No," he commanded. "If she comes, I won't allow you to get hurt. It's my curse, not yours. You shouldn't have to carry the weight of it."  
Gerard wished he could find the words to tell Frank that he had been carrying the weight of that curse for years, ever since he was old enough to understand that his prince was in real danger.

 

There was no party for the prince's sixteenth birthday. No presents came and no guests were invited to the castle. The portcullis was down and the doors were barred, guarded by knights.  
Frank sat in his room all day, watching the sun's path across the sky. There were six guards outside the door and only Gerard, Toro, and the king were allowed inside.  
Gerard begged Frank to eat something, but the prince's hands were shaking so much from fear that he couldn't hold a knife.  
The king sat with his son that afternoon, saying things that were for Frank's ears alone. Gerard and Toro stood on the far side of the room, shifting anxiously.  
"If she comes," Toro whispered, "I'll challenge her and you take the prince and run."  
"I will," Gerard whispered back.  
"Use the servant's entrance behind the tapestry, then go down the stairs. There's a contingent of knights waiting for you there."  
"Okay."  
The two young men watched the sky turn red from the sunset, fearing for their prince.

The moment the sun dipped below the horizon, Frank let out a startled cry and a green light burst from him. Toro and Gerard both leapt forward, but as the light washed over them, they were struck dumb and fell to the floor in a faint.  
Frank stood, eyes half lidded and unaware of his unconscious father, servant, and bodyguard. He swayed, falling completely under the witch's old enchantment. He was pulled forward by a magic force, toward the servant's entry and then down the stairs. He walked the hallways in a daze, passing by the unconscious knights and maids, following a path he wasn't aware of.  
It led him down and down, until he was under the castle, near the dungeons. There was an old room that hadn't been used in decades and, enchanted, Frank pulled open the wooden door.  
Inside, placed in the center of the room as if it were waiting for him, was a spinning wheel.  
Frank strode forward and lifted his right hand, reaching for the needle.

 

The castle came awake with the sunrise; the king in his son's room, knights in their armor laying heaped upon the floor, maids with their hands still submerged in yesterday's wash.  
A search was put up immediately. Every person from the king down to the youngest kitchen servant went looking for the prince.  
It was Toro that found him, deep under the castle in an old passage way, asleep on the floor next to a spinning wheel with blood on the tip of the needle.  
The prince was laid in his bed, dressed in fine clothes. The king mourned, as did the kingdom.

Fair folk from across the land came and examined him, trying to find a way to lift the curse. Healers and mages and sorcerers all came, offered a reward from the king if they could wake his son.  
Princesses arrived soon after, dozens upon dozens of them. Gerard stood in the far corner of the room and watched as they filed in and pressed a kiss to the prince's still lips, hoping he would wake.  
Eventually the kingdom started to lose hope. Weeks passed with no sign of the prince ever waking. Gerard continued to tend to him, changing his clothes and brushing his hair, while Toro refused to leave his post by the door.  
Winter came and the king despaired.

 

Gerard tossed back the heavy curtains when spring came, letting warm light into the prince's room. The prince had grown pale over the winter months and his hair grew long. The black flame over his heart had long since faded away.  
Gerard sat by the prince's bedside and sighed. The king had stopped coming to visit his son weeks ago, too saddened by the sight to endure it. Gerard didn't want Frank to be alone, so he sang and brushed the prince's hair, hoping he could hear it in his dreams.  
Before he left to go perform his other chores, Gerard gazed down at the prince and bit back tears.  
He missed him. He missed Frank's teasing and complaining. He missed following him on hunts and listening to his jokes as he worked. Gerard hated the witch more than anything and hated himself for failing Frank. He had promised to protect him, and he hadn't.  
"Frank," Gerard begged for the thousandth time, "please wake up."  
The prince lay still aside from his shallow breathing.  
Gerard stepped close to the bed, wondering if he dared, wondering what would happen if he just...  
Gerard leaned down slowly, scared that someone might burst into the room and see. He placed a gentle hand on Frank's cheek and closed his eyes. He brushed his lips against Frank's, wishing Frank were awake, wishing he had kissed him before when they would have had time together.  
He pulled back and sighed against Frank's lips.  
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Gerard stood and turned to leave the room.  
"...Gerard?"  
Gerard spun around in shock to see Frank struggling to sit up, blinking in the light.  
"You- you're awake!" Gerard gasped.  
"What happened?" Frank wondered.  
Gerard crossed the room and helped Frank sit up. He seemed weak and tired.  
"You pricked your finger," Gerard told him. "You've been asleep."  
"For how long?" Frank asked, his voice rising in fright.  
"It's spring."  
"Who did it? Who woke me?"  
Frank looked about the room like he was expecting to see a princess hiding in a corner. Gerard felt his face heat up, turning bright red. Frank stared at him for a long moment before breaking into a grin.  
"It was you, wasn't it?" Frank asked. "You kissed me."  
Gerard nodded, embarrassed and terrified.  
"You love me."  
Gerard looked up and swallowed. "I'm sorry."  
"Why?" Frank asked, tilting his head.  
"I'm not a princess," Gerard explained.  
Frank chuckled weakly and Gerard thrilled to hear his laugh again.  
"I never cared much for princesses," Frank told him before reaching out and pulling Gerard down for a kiss. A real kiss that they could both enjoy. The first kiss of many, many more.

And they lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the movie Maleficent (which was amaaazing btw) but twisted for my own purposes :D


End file.
